


A Thing

by Saebrin



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2010-2011 Season, Gender Identity, M/M, Philadelphia Flyers, Pre-Slash, Stress Relief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8983810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saebrin/pseuds/Saebrin
Summary: Claude and Danny have their own form of stress relief, and goddamn, it's pretty. Pre-slash.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [THE_TOASTER_THAT_COULD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/THE_TOASTER_THAT_COULD/gifts).



> A/N: Happy hockey holidays, THE_TOASTER_THAT_COULD! This is a little outside my usual wheelhouse, but I hope it fits the spirit of the prompt.

It’s a Thing, capital T.

See, back when Sylvie and Danny were freshly divorced and cactus-prickly toward each other, Sylvie didn’t like coming around the Haddonfield house. Danny didn’t _want_ her coming around, either, so items that otherwise might’ve been boxed up and carted off to her new place … well, weren’t.

Mostly these were little things, forgotten things, old things. A hairband fallen down behind the dresser; the earrings Danny bought for her thirtieth birthday and never, ever saw her wear; half-used nail polish in the en suite medicine cabinet.

A couple months after he moves in, Claude finds that last one. Fresh from a scrub-down and with his towel creeping lower ’round his hips, he’s rummaging for Q-tips when he knocks over the Band-Aid box. Behind it are three little glass bottles—red, light purple, and a peachy kinda-maybe-pink.

He touches his thumb to the cap of one, real gentle-like, and standing heat-flushed from the shower, nipples pebbling as a draft sneaks in, he flashes back to middle school. Back to grade eight, to the times he snuck Izzy’s Pure Ice bottles for illicit late-night nail-painting. He’d seen it in that Alana Austin movie, _Motocrossed_ —all the dirt bike racers with their green-painted nails—and, well, Izzy was terrible at keeping track of her stuff. She’d never miss a bottle or two.

The whole thing had been oddly calming, the repetition of stroke after stroke dropping him into a cottony, numb sort of mindspace, even as he concentrated intensely on getting the layers smooth and uniform. Wasted effort, since he’d had to scrub it all off the next morning, acetone fumes burning his nostrils; all the guys were going to see his bare feet in the locker room, after all, and in middle school, everybody wants to stick out, but only for the right reasons. The “he’s cool” or “he has the new Xbox” or “he’s got older friends who buy everybody booze” kinds of reasons, not the “he wears his sister’s makeup” ones.

In the here, the now, he lets out a little huff of air and thumbs at the bottle again, the purple one. He bites his lip, indecisive. The house is quiet around him, Danny’s boys all down the block playing street hockey with the Anderson kids, and hell, why not?

It’s been a long time, but he still remembers the rhythm of brush over keratin, the way his neck muscles unwound and his breathing grew methodical, slow and deep. This fall, with expectations from fans and coaches and the front office all riding heaven-high after their Cup run, there’s as much pressure as he ever felt battling for a roster spot, or being a walk-on in the Q, or sitting at the Draft with his head full of _please, please, don’t let me get passed over again_.

So, again—why not?

He sits on the closed toilet seat, props a foot against the bathtub rim. Then, cradling the bottle in his non-dominant hand, he starts with his big toe.

The first stroke he lays down is messy, gooping pale purple around the crease where nail meets skin. _Damn it, damn it._ So much for muscle memory. The angle’s weird, his elbow bumping his knee as he tries to reposition his foot. He spreads his toes so the polish won’t smear.

As he tries again, he catches sight of himself in the mirror. Tongue stuck out in concentration. Curls water-dark and shadowing his eyes. Faint ginger scruff creeping along his jawline. He knows guys aren’t supposed to like being called “pretty,” but he thinks maybe he wouldn’t mind.

He ducks his head again.

Mid-stroke, and there’s footsteps sounding on the stairs. He freezes like a rabbit.

Whoever it is, they pass the door and keep going, headed for Cam’s room at the end of the hall. He releases his held breath with a _whoosh_.

It’s premature, though. Just a moment later, the steps backtrack and in barges Danny. He’s dressed in his ratty laundry-day pajama pants and no shirt, a half-full laundry basket tucked under his arm. There’s no knock or warning before the door swings wide, because let’s be honest—hockey players, they have a warped concept of privacy. They’ve had it conditioned out bit by bit in locker rooms, hotel rooms, buses and trains and planes, so neither of them gives a damn if Danny shaves at the sink while Claude’s styling his hair, or if Claude takes a piss while Danny’s in the shower.

 _Fuck, fuck, Christ,_ Claude thinks now, though, pulse accelerating. A blob of polish drips from the brush suspended over his foot. It hits the tile and pools. For an absurd second, he wishes it were red. Then he could pass the whole thing off as a shaving accident.

The world goes weirdly silent for a moment, like it’s on pause. All Claude can hear is the blood crashing in his ears, the quickened shudder of his breathing. Danny’d never struck him as the judgmental type, but, well, you can never _really_ know someone...

Danny looks from Claude’s toes to the brush, then back again. He cocks his head, raises an eyebrow, and when he speaks, his tone is mild. “Sloppy, Clo. Didn’t you ever learn about coloring inside the lines?”

Is that some sort of weird gender reference? Like, a “stay in your anatomical lane” kind of thing?

Fuck it, he’s gonna take it at face value. “I was more of a scribble-in-the-white-spaces kid,” he admits.

Danny laughs, and Jesus, Jesus, thank you, it’s the _with you, not at you_ kind. His smile is one that shows teeth, and the skin around his eyes crinkles. Claude feels weirdly light all of a sudden, the leaden mass in his chest buoying just a bit.

And he thinks maybe that’ll be it. Just a jab at Claude's shitty art skills, a laugh, and now Danny’ll collect all the nasty wet towels and truck off to the laundry room to commune with the washer and dryer...

But no, that’s not “just” it.

“Want help?” Danny offers. He doesn’t wait for confirmation, just shoves razors and shaving cream and hair gel out of the way, then wedges the laundry basket onto a tiny strip of bathroom counter. Next he crouches in front of Claude, leaving Claude suddenly warm-cheeked and far too conscious of Danny’s head right down by his lap, by the bare spread of his thighs, by the towel that’s slowly but surely creeping looser on his hips.

Danny doesn’t seem to notice. He takes the brush from Claude’s fingers, which still tremble with the aftershocks of his little panic-induced heartquake. “You’re using too much at once, see. You have to scrape some off on the lip of the bottle.” Danny does just that, and the layer goes on sleek and smooth. His hand is nice and steady, like it’s no big deal.

“How d’you know this?”

Danny shrugs, and there’s bitterness laced into his voice when he says, “Sylvie used to ask me to do her hands sometimes.”

They fall silent for the next few minutes while Danny works. Claude doesn't mind the quiet, just tilts his head back and breathes the sharp scent of the polish into his nose. It has the same easing effect, despite him not wielding the brush himself.

“We should do this again some time,” Danny says when he’s done, when the last toe, the kinked pinky-toe Claude broke blocking a shot when he was fifteen, is glistening purple. Danny’s tone is casual, light. So casual that it’s actually serious as fuck, like he’s offering something he wants but thinks he shouldn’t _show_ that he wants.

Claude can relate.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we should.”

* * *

That was then.

Now, in 2016, he’s got a shaving kit bag stuffed full—bottles and cosmetic pads and polish remover and even those funky toe wedges—and when the weight of the captaincy gets to be too much, he’ll sit in Danny’s living room and pick a color. They’ll drink imported beer and do their Thing, capital T. 

Now, in 2016, he doesn’t have to stop at just _his_ toes. Danny’s got ten perfectly good ones, after all, and no stall in the locker room, no cameras shoved at him fresh from the showers. Not a single person to see his tiny goddamn elf feet if he doesn’t want.

Maybe they’ll both go orange for the playoffs this year.


End file.
